#gamejams

Thinking about taking a week off and doing this, from the page:

"A 7-day hackathon where you build a programming language and then make a game using it.

We are currently doing yet another Game Jam. Instead of having the full week to work on it, we only have two days. I have decided to stay back today to do fix things up and make it look a little prettier. 

CatBoy

A brand new console from Catalope Games! CatBoy is a handheld cartridge based gaming system. Just plug in a 5v mobile phone charger and play! Different games can be loaded by inserting different cartridges and rebooting the console.

During Spring Game Jam 2017 I build a small handheld game console using an Arduino Esplora. The games can be loaded into SD-cards and inserted into the system. I developed 3 games in total for it, one for each game jam theme; Ice Space (Icecream Monsters), Town Defence (Pixel Erasers) and Shool Run (Highschool Race). I made my own sprite and game data format and that can be edited using a hex editor. Since the hardware was extremely limited draw optimization was important to even get a playable game running.

Town defence game

CatBoy booting

Tech specs

160 x 128 TFT LCD display

16 MHz 8-bit processor

32 KB Flash memory

Analog Joystick

Fire button

SD-card reader

Games

During the jam 3 games where developed, one for each theme.

CatBoy and 3 game cartridges

School Run

Highschool Race Help Cat Boy to get through school as fast as possible! Catch the highest grades and make sure to not fall to many classes!

Ice Kitten

Icecream monsters

Alien ice-creams are attacking the kitty planet! Shoot them down! Make sure to not crash into the enemies!

Town Defence

Pixel Erasers

Evil Pixel-Erasers are attacking Cat Boy’s town! Make sure they do not reach the ground by shooting them down!

Make your own games

It is possible to develop your own games for the CatBoy console. All you need is a SD-card reader. Cartridges should be FAT-32 formated SD-cards containing the following files. All files except splash.bmp are supposed to be edited with a hex editor.

Pixel art WIP

palette.dat Palette used by the game. First 3 bytes are background color, follow are the different colors in RBG order.

enemy.dat & player.dat 8×8 sprite used by enemy or player. Number refers to color in palette.

game.dat Flags for game engine. Example from School Run 02 – Win condition 0F – Win condition value 00 – Loose condition 06 – Loose condition value 00 – Palette used for text in game 00 – Palette used for bullets in game. If 0 can not shoot 02 – Enemy speed 00 – Bullet speed 08 – Enemy spawn rate

splash.bmp a 24-bit 160×128 splash screen image for splash, victory and game over screen.

In Road Doctor 2060 the player takes the role of a road doctor living in Neo Tokyo. Goal is to drive the motorbike to the other side of the town where the president has damaged his pinky toe. The motorcycle is voice activated so the player needs to make motor sounds to accelerate. Road Doctor 2060 won second place at BOSS JAM 2017.

The theme for the game jam was Emergency? which we associated with time pressure, chaos, action and hero saves the day. The question mark indicates that the emergency might not be so serious after all. The game is made for Samsung GearVR and you sit on chairs configures like a motorcycle with an USB fan placed in front of you for speed-wind.

Motorcycle, complete with fan

Jon driving very fast

Motorcycle rendered

Credits David Wistrand Elin Josefson Jesper Tingvall Jon Widén Sara Erenius

Additional assets Music by Robinerd Skybox by A-Lab Software Limited & 3delyvisions

Collaboration Brings Challenges and the Rest of the Struggles of Being a Writer

I'm writing a story for a game. I'm participating in a RPG Maker Game Jam that's frequently ran by Beregon with the theme I joined being Hero's Academy. I would choose a horror themed RPG Game Jam, but I wanted to work with my brother, and he's not a fan of that genre. We both like anime (especially Isekai's), so Hero's Academy seemed like a good fit.

The Game Jam started on July 3rd and will end by September 2nd. I have 2 months to finish it.

Once we got an idea what we wanted for the story, and while my brother figured out the game engine, I started writing. Figuring out the characters are the easiest for me, so of course I started with that. Then I started the rest...meh. I plotted some, and I wrote some, but I didn't get far. I think I went above the scope and I was getting overwhelmed. My brain likes to yell at me: “bigger! bigger! bigger!” for the plot, so I go cry myself a river. Not to mention, Art Fight started and I wanted to participate this year (Go Team Mystery!), so my attention was divided.

I really love the idea of making games. I love the idea of making all these routes people can play and having them find all the endings and secret endings. I tried writing in twine, and other ways people write for game writing, but I still struggle with all of it. It can be discouraging at times when I struggle so much with it.

GB Pixel Art Jam 2024 (October 5th - October 7th)

Note: This is a jam for pixel art made for the Game Boy

Link

PlayJam 6 (October 12th - October 15th)

A Jam where you make a game for the Playdate console over a weekend

Link

Scream Jam 2024 (October 16th - October 23rd)

A horror-themed game jam without a specific theme

Link

OST Composing Jam [Sandbox] (October 18th - October 20th)

A jam for composing OST using a specified provided element

Link

ProcJam / Procedual Generation Jam (October 26th - November 5th)

A jam to create things (not necessary games) that create things.

Link

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